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Celebrating Alec Baldwin’s Salvation
By now most people have heard that Alec Baldwin’s trial on involuntary manslaughter has ended in a dismissal with prejudice (meaning he cannot be retried). This came about because potentially exculpatory evidence in the possession of the prosecutor was withheld from the defense. The evidence was apparently “live” rounds sent by the supplier of the “squibs” that were to be used in movie production. A major question was how a “live” round made it to the gun used in the filming. If it was sent by the supplier unknown to anyone in the production company, then Baldwin did not do anything wrong — tragic as the shooting was. The prosecutor’s theory was that someone in the production company knew that there were “live” rounds in the shipment and negligently included them in with the “squibs,” setting the deadly incident in motion.
Baldwin did not help himself with his reputation as a bit of a hothead, blowhard and, possibly, a sloppy producer. That, and his theory that the gun fired without him pulling the trigger, was not credible. It wasn’t credible because at various points he both claimed not to have pulled the trigger and at other times seemed to admit pulling the trigger. But the case was never about an intent to wound or kill anyone. It was always about grievous negligence that led to the taking of a life. And that negligence could only have been imputed to Baldwin as the producer and ultimately the one holding the gun, if someone in the company knew there was a risk of a “live” round being in that gun.
The prosecution always thought that someone knew there were live rounds in the armory. One of the reasons is that suppliers of squibs mark those rounds differently (color?). This I learned from an earlier program about the case. I don’t recall whether it was Dateline, 20/20 or 48 Hours, but it was probably one of them. The armorer should be able to distinguish quickly “live” rounds from “squibs” and take steps to keep them separate. But if the supplier had furnished “live” rounds marked as “squibs”, then the negligence occurred well before the gun was loaded and brought to Baldwin for that fatal event.
The defense had asked to examine all of the rounds collected by the prosecution from the movie set. The prosecution let the defense examine some, but not all. In other words, absent a full examination of all the rounds shipped to the movie set, the defense could not determine whether there had been any miss-marked rounds. The prosecutor contended that there weren’t even though they did not provide the defense with all the rounds and may not have examined all of the rounds themselves. The defense had not found a miss-marked round in the evidence they were permitted to examine, but they had not examined all of the rounds.
When the judge found this out, she did the right thing: The jury had been sworn and evidence presented. There was no simple cure like postponing the trial briefly while the defense examined new evidence, and the prosecution’s failure to provide the defense with the evidence was intentional. So the judge dismissed the case with prejudice.
I always thought the case was marginal. Civil liability was clear. And I believe a financial settlement with the family had already been reached. Baldwin’s knowledge of guns was likely inadequate. But it wasn’t a matter of not pointing a loaded gun at a person or checking to see if the gun was loaded. They were lining up a film shot aimed at the camera with the cinematographer and director in line with the camera to see whether they were going to get the movie image they desired. So having a gun pointed at them was unavoidable. And the gun was a revolver and was supposed to be loaded. It’s just that it was supposed to be loaded with “squibs”. Should Baldwin have emptied and reloaded after verifying that they were “squibs”? Would he have actually noticed a difference?
Accordingly, the case of involuntary manslaughter always seemed to be about Baldwin being responsible for the overall movie’s production, not the fact that he held the gun that discharged and killed the cinematographer. I can’t imagine that any actor who was not also in charge of filming would have been charged with manslaughter for failure to check a gun handed them by the armorer. Nor would such an actor likely be civilly liable — that would be on the production company.
Would the evidence denied to the defense have been exculpatory? Maybe, maybe not. But the prosecutorial misconduct was clear. And it didn’t help that there had been an earlier indictment dismissed at the request of the prosecution who thought that their case could be made better with a little more time. So I celebrate Baldwin’s salvation from this prosecution. And I reflect on how many other cases out there are in need of the same.
Published in General
It goes without saying that Alec Baldwin is a jackass. However, being a jackass does not mean that he was guilty of involuntary manslaughter in this case. The judge made the right decision based upon the prosecutorial misconduct.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of prosecutorial misconduct going around. In the case of Donald Trump, there’s the prosecutorial misconduct of bringing cases that should never have been brought.
In the case of the January 6 defendants, there was the misconduct of bringing the case via stretched interpretation of an inapplicable statute, and keeping people in prison for many months pending trial on what was essentially criminal trespass.
And who can forget the Department of Justice’s anti-Trump Russia hoax?
I have known some very fine prosecutors and other government attorneys. But those who commit misconduct need to be rooted out and gone for good from the government sphere.
Just for clarification – by squib are you referring to dummy rounds without primer or powder? I’ve always understood squib to refer to a round with a live primer and no powder – basically a manufacturing error. Squibs of this sort will often drive a bullet into the barrel but it will lodge there and can cause an explosive failure when the next proper round is fired. I’ve seen it happen twice and while no one was hurt the barrels had to be replaced on both handguns (one 9 x 19 and one .45ACP).
And a dummy round with a dummy primer would be indistinguishable from a live round to a casual observer. So as much as I despise Baldwin that’s in his favor had he even checked.
BTW, in movies I’ve seen someone unlatch a revolver cylinder to check the load and every primer has a visible dent where it’s been fired. And then the shooter closes the cylinder and proceeds to shoot.
Baldwin violated several rules of responsible gun handling. All guns are always loaded. Never point a gun at something you’re not willing to destroy. Know your target and what is behind it.
His negligence, in my view, comes from his not taking the firearm seriously. He was playing with it. Like pointing his finger and shouting “bang.”
These thoughts have nothing to do with the law. Clearly the judge had no choice but to dismiss the case for the reasons you describe. The rules of responsible gun handling, that we drill into students and young people until they become automatic, are not laws. They just save lives.
In this age of the perpetually offended, I find it offensive when firearms are not handled properly.
So basic gun safety for everyone.
The above quote comes from an essay I wrote about the Rust shooting. Whatever what someone thinks about Alec Baldwin when it comes to a criminal trial does not matter. What matters is how the rounds found their way to the movie set becomes regardless of whether the prosecution was going to present it or not Baldwins defense attorneys were entitled to use it as a legitimate defense.
This former police officer’s point of view is you cannot exclude exculpatory evidence by withholding it from a defense attorney.
When and where evidence is found becomes critical for a law enforcement agency to have a complete chain of custody record. This particular hard way lesson learned means that the State of New Mexico AG needs to conduct an investigation into the prosecutors and correct this issue. If that includes chain of custody issues in law enforcement agencies as well so be it.
Does that mean that Baldwin is not an irresponsible gun handler, not necessarily but I wouldn’t trust him with one.
I don’t know what form the “non-bullet” round was supposed to be. Many times in the movies when you see a dramatic shot looking down the barrel of a gun and it firing there is a pyrotechnic display suggestive of the real thing. These days I imagine this display could be added in post-production. But otherwise you would need some power burning to give the effect. The image I included in the post came from an article talking about the Baldwin case and comparing a Colt .45 long round that would be used in Baldwin’s gun with a “blank” for that gun. It is suggestive that this what the “squib” looked like, but I can’t say definitively.
I agree, but as I described in the OP they were trying to line up the image they wanted for the movie. I think all 3 people involved, Baldwin, the cinematographer and the director were all too cavalier about the gun, but either you get that image or you don’t. If you are, then either you have a robust safety chain or do everything remotely relying the camera view as you set it up. Of course all the other movies after the Rust death were likely even more vigilant, but over time that is lost …. until the next time.
Amen! to all of this.
This was the right outcome
I have not followed the trial in depth. But the OP does not seem to correspond to what I understand of it.
Add in Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect due to the OP’s complete abuse of the term “squib” and all of the OP has to be discounted.
What is the support for anything in this statement?
I think the evidence was live rounds from a vendor who had also supplied ammo to another set that Thel Reed had been involved with which may have had the same cases as the live ammo on the Rust set. These were given to the Gutierrez-Reed defense who chose not to use them because they were incriminatory toward her. But I am available to be corrected.
For most of us, and our personal curiosity, that’s true. And I had been wondering why we did not hear more from the media. But from a court point of view, was that a question at all? It would be foolish for the prosecution to make an issue of exactly how the live rounds got on set occurred because reasonable doubt would be guaranteed.
Presumably, the prosecution took the position that, no matter how they got on set, the standard of care required Baldwin to do X and/or not do Y and that he culpably failed to comply with that standard.
So much wrong with this. As noted, if pointing an unloaded gun was barred by the standard of care we have liability. If failure to inspect the gun to verify only dummy round were present was required by the standard of care, we also potentially have liability.
This is not a trial of a corporation or the other producers. But of Baldwin.
As I write, this just started:
Without personally confirming that the gun wasn’t loaded with real rounds, he pointed it at another person , pulled the trigger, and killed them. There may be additional people bearing responsibility who should be punished, but Alec Baldwin should have been found guilty and received the appropriate punishment.
I find myself wondering if the prosecution maybe did this intentionally to get a dismissal, ideally a dismissal with prejudice which is what they got.
Not likely.
Much more likely is that the defense knew about at least some of it and held it in reserve.
Maybe. But if they were under pressure to prosecute a Hollywood celeb on the left, that they didn’t really want to prosecute, setting up “misconduct” to get a dismissal with prejudice gets them off the hook, now and into the future. No retrial.
This always seemed like a silly case, to me.
For example, about pointing the gun — as I understand it, they were setting up a scene in which Baldwin was supposed to point the gun at the camera. That’s the sort of thing that happens in movies. In fact, it seems to me that actors point guns at each other quite often in movies and television shows, because it’s, you know, acting.
As I also understand it, there is a specific person on the set, the armorer, charged with the responsibility of taking care of the firearms. The armorer was convicted.
The idea that an actor should not rely on the armorer, in a situation like this, seems absolutely absurd, to me.
I understand firearms safety. This is a movie set, people.
It is my own opinion that many of those critical of Baldwin would sing an entirely different song if it had been someone like Gary Sinese.
The problem is their covid policies kept the armorer off set.
So the AD handed Baldwin the revolver.
He made a plea deal to testify against the armorer for loading the live round into the revolver.
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/david-halls-rust-plea-hearing-negligent-use-deadly-weapon-1235570124/
“Someone like Gary Sinise” isn’t likely to make such a mistake, that’s why we hear about them coming from the Left.
I don’t know whether he was really guilty of a crime, but I don’t understand the judge’s decision. There was no allegation that Baldwin was responsible for bringing live rounds into the set. So the evidence which wasn’t made available to the defense was irrelevant. There were little or no relevant facts even in dispute. He said he didn’t pull the trigger, but no one believes that. The question was whether what he did was a criminally negligent act. That’s a matter of law, not fact. What does the undisclosed box of bullets have to do with that? It sounds like the dismissal was a way to “punish” the prosecutors. Isn’t there a way to punish them without committing another injustice? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
But it makes sense if, as I suspect, they were looking for a way to let Baldwin off the hook when they didn’t want to prosecute him anyway but for public pressure.
We should not allow our views that Alec Baldwin is a true jackass to cloud our opinions about the criminal prosecution. The judge dismissed the case due to prosecutorial misconduct. No matter what, the prosecutors have an obligation to act properly, to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence, and to refuse to prosecute the innocent.
When prosecutors go rogue as in this case, (and as in the Trump cases), cases should be dismissed.
We’ll get him the next time he does it.
But dismissed with prejudice, means it’s OVER. That lets Baldwin completely off the hook, for those who think he actually should be held criminally accountable for SOMETHING.
Exactly. Usually when you shoot someone and it’s not self defense, you’re guilty of something. An exception would be something like a hunting accident. I couldn’t figure out whether what Baldwin did would have been viewed like that. I guess now we’ll never know.
Does this happen a lot? For example, People who clearly murdered someone go free because some prosecutor was incompetent or dishonest? That seems like a danger to the public interest and I can’t imagine why it would even occur to any judge to do it.
The U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against criminal double jeopardy required that if the case were to be dismissed, it must be dismissed with prejudice. The jury had been seated, and the trial had already started. So, as the judge said in her recitation of the background of her ruling, “jeopardy had attached.”
And there are probably multiple laws, rules, and reasons against pausing the trial for some time (holding the same jury), which would also require speculation about whether the defense would have conducted its defense differently during the first couple of days of the trial had the defense known of the withheld evidence.
I don’t think it happens a lot, but it does happen. Criminals escape liability because either the police commit errors in gathering and preserving evidence, or the prosecuting attorneys commit errors in pursuing the legal case in court. The more common cases are the drug dealers or thieves who escape liability because the police erred in searching the criminal’s car or residence, and so the incriminating evidence found in the search is excluded from use in court, leaving the prosecution with nothing to link the criminal with the crime.
In the development of American law, a more-or-less consensus developed that the public risk of having some criminals escape liability is less than the public risk that would result from overzealous police and prosecutors trampling the rights of citizens while pursuing the worthy goal of keeping crime under control.
It’s a question worthy of constant consideration: How do we, free citizens, keep a powerful government in check? Are there other methods that might be effective?
Okay, then, so what this is, is another indication that bad PROSECUTORS need to be PROSECUTED. Not just have cases dismissed.
If Baldwin isn’t going to do time for his misconduct, then the prosecutor should do time for theirs.
If evidence is corrupted or mistakes are made that make it impossible to confidently link the defendant to the crime, that’s one thing. That didn’t happen here. What he was being prosecuted for didn’t have anything to do with the evidence that was held back. No allegation was made that would have made that evidence relevant. No one alleged he thought the gun was loaded. The question was, if you point and shoot a gun at someone and kill them, have you committed a crime if you not only didn’t know it was loaded, but had every reason to think it wasn’t.
I agree with you completely. Prosecutorial misconduct has become too common and needs to be squashed. This includes having the prosecutors face penalties for such behavior. If these institutions wish to re-earn trust they can only do so by imposing hard penalties on bad actors.
I couldn’t disagree more strongly. Not all bad results are caused by criminal acts. I would not want someone who believes this to serve on a jury. To me it is clearly a disqualifying belief.
I don’t know what wiggle room the judge had in her rulings, whether she had to dismiss this case with prejiduce versus declare a mistrial.
In the end, though, I think the U.S. legal system is prone to let cases drag on and on, and I can see the point of just ending it. It should happen more often.
When this case first started, and it was clear that Baldwin was going to hire crack laywers for the case, there was some talk of sending the case outside Santa Fe County and having the State of New Mexico hire independent counsel from a big law firm. Or maybe it was the county that would have hired them, though New Mexico counties generally don’t have enough money for that sort of thing.
In the end, it was local prosecutors that had the case, and they were outclassed.
And I figure that the judge thought she was also outclassed. Though it’s been decades since I lived in New Mexico, I don’t think that the state attracts the best and brightest for most fields, and that includes the lawyers – at least the ones working for the government.